The other day two quaint women came into the cafe for a cup of tea. They asked all kinds of questions about the tea that we had -- their flavour, strength, origin, blah, blah. I made up some answers while wondering how it was possible that people can end up becoming such wankers over a pile of dried up tea leaves. They seemed satisfied with what I said though and chose a pot of Fancy Oh la la Tea for two. It was the end of the day so they were the only ones in the cafe and they just sat there talking about beige things for the best part of an hour while we pottered around in our self-important waitress way. I would write down some of the conversation but it was so vacuous it went in one ear and out the other.
Finally they came up to the counter to pay.
"That'll be $9.80 thanks."
* rustle rustle coinage rustle*
"Thanks a lot, it was lovely."
"Bye."
A normal exchange. But later when I was clearing their table I realised that the cups were still half-filled with water. As in water, rather than tea. I flipped open the lid of the teapot and realised that we'd forgotten to put the tea leaves in. These two ladies had been sitting there for an hour drinking hot water and hadn't said a thing.
Were they too polite to complain? Or had they thought that they were actually drinking tea, despite all their wanky comments and tea-snob remarks??
People are so strange.
